Voulez vous coucher avec la vérité, ce soir?

Obama appears to be doing well. He, like Clinton before him, took advantage of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in order to rescind the Global Gag Rule. I wonder if all the Hillary groupies will now stop writing letters to Ms. Magazine bitching about their Obama cover. Probably not.

He signed an order to close Gitmo as soon as we can figure out where to send all the scary dudes we've been keeping in there for all these years. I vote Texas. In fact, now that the cowboy charade is over, I hear the Bushes will be moving to the manse in Dallas and won't have much use for their Crawford brush-clearing photo op staging area and oppressively patriarchal wedding location. Maybe the former detainees could turn it into a going concern. I'm not sure they deserve such a fate, but I am sure that the Bushes sure as hell deserve to live in Dallas, and Dallas probably deserves them as well. Never in my life have I visited such a souless/lifeless/humorless berg. When the highlight of your city is a museum devoted to an assassination, you might want to have the chamber of commerce make a tiny bit more of an effort. Of course, Dallas was the site of my run-in with a rifle-wielding Guardsman at airport security. Dude actually pointed his M16 at me, I think because I had crossed over some invisible line on the agressively patterned airport carpeting in order to help my then-husband with the bags that they had just finished searching because we had flown in from Los Angeles and therefore = terrorists. My brother, who many years ago was in the National Guard, reassured me that a Guardsman in a civilian facility would never have been issued actual bullets, but I dunno. We are talking about Texas, after all, where they have ammo cozies for sale at the airport giftshop.

Obama also ordered federal employees to disclose more information to the public, and he shut down the Penn. Ave. to K Street superhighway and gift registry. Along the way, he also slyly confirmed, just in case we'd heard anything to the contrary, that the Vice President is indeed a member of the executive branch and as such, subject to its rules. Just, you know, FYI. Not like anyone's planning anything.

Plus, he reiterated that non-administration federal employees should be hired for their skills and experience, not for whether they dress left or right.

Yeah, so that's Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld AND Gonzalez, in case anyone's counting.

It's a nice start, except for the fuss accompanying the flubbing of the oath of office by CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Roberts. A friend of mine compared Roberts to those pretentious waiters who refuse to write your order down in order to impress you, and then get it wrong. It's 35 words, dude. Either memorize it for real, or fucking read it. Plus his "So help you god?", while no doubt intended to come off as "playful" and "not stodgy!" instead read as pretty solidly toolish. Roberts, it's not about you, dude. If anyone comes away from the ceremony remembering the Justice who administered the oath...UR DOIN IT WRONG.

Drudge's headline for the re-swearing that was done in the Oval Office yesterday out of "an abundance of caution" noted that Obama did not use a Bible. Which, constitutionally speaking, matters not a whit, although the freepers tried their best to whip up some outrage. I guess Rick Warren's invocation with helpful Son of God pronunciation guide wasn't enough for them.

Quelle surprise!

That's French. I'm assuming Obama's made it okay again to be French, or at least snotty.

Of course ex-president W, who elevated churlishness to an art form, could not resist an attempt to rebutt Obama's inauguration speech. Before a friendly crowd in his boyhood home of Midland, Texas on inauguration day, he said:

"We worked to extend freedom and human liberty as the alternatives to tyranny and terror. No matter whether or not you agree with my decisions or not, one thing you have to agree with is that we have not been attacked in the last seven years."

No, we have not. At least, not on our own soil. That doesn't mean we haven't died. 4200 US soldiers have died in Iraq. 30,000 have been wounded. Iraqi civilian deaths are approaching 100,000.

Let us not forget that this war was not sold to us as a means by which to liberate Iraqis from an oppressive regime. Because we would not have bought it. It was marketed to us, carefully and deliberately, as a necessary measure to strike down a country intent on striking us, a charge we now know to have been not only false, but manufactured.

This is the truth. Whether Bush was your guy or not, this is the truth. Whether you voted for Obama or not, this is the truth. Whether you espouse "America - love it or leave it," or believe that BushCo brought down the twin towers with hidden explosives and had the passengers of those four flights shot by their own countrymen, this is the truth. We were lied to.

And they will never be punished for it -- not in their lifetimes, and unfortunately for me, not in mine.

Come on up

Okay, folks, here's the thing about Rick Warren, and shit like that.

I've been mulling this over for a while, and here's my conclusion: it's brilliant.

I know, I've read all the hateful stuff, and believe me, I find him plenty abhorrent. On top of that, I think the whole fallacy behind his mega-seller "The Purpose-Driven Life" is just hooey. The first sentence of the book is, "It's not about you." Now, while I applaud any effort to push Americans into being less selfish, I think it's wrong to tell people that the way out of their self-centered hell is to live for God. I think everyone would be better off if they acknowledged that there is no God, and to learn that to think about others, and to put others before yourself sometimes, and to act charitably, and yes, even to work toward a government that "spreads the wealth around" are things you ultimately do for yourself. Undoubtably there is a moral imperative at work, in that society cannot advance if we don't all care about the collective good, but also, look, if doing all those things I just listed made me feel bad, or even indifferent, I'm not sure I'd bother either. But they don't. They make me feel great about myself, and I don't mean in an "I'm so fucking cool" way, I mean that when I do something good for someone other than myself, it makes me feel good to think about it. Like when you find the perfect present for someone, and you can't stop thinking about giving it to them. It's a great feeling. I mean, there's nothing better, right?

And goddammit man, but Spooney's smile is hard-wired into my pleasure center. Sometimes I manage to express to Spooney how I feel about him in a way that makes his whole face light up like he's a little kid. In that moment, he looks at me like he's never had a bad day, like he's never lost someone he loves, like he's never been betrayed or disappointed or made to feel small. I live for that. I wish I could do it every day. And holy fucking shit, readers, I want that for everybody.

The trouble with living to serve God, is that people tend to start to believe that they have a personal relationship with the Almighty, and in the absence of actual tangible input from Him, which is, let us just remind ourselves, impossible, they start to attribute their own motivations and prejudices to God, and believe that their own ignorant douchehat opinions are shared by a being capable of creating the entire universe from fuck all. The next thing you know, they're on television proclaiming that God wanted 1500 citizens to drown in their living rooms because of the way some people like to configure their sexual organs.

So why then is picking Warren brilliant?

Because, to denounce him is counter-productive. This guy is very very very fucking popular with a lot of genuinely decent people, no matter what I think of him. Why not let those people know that they have a voice? Why not let them know that they have a place at the table? If Obama comes into the White House liberal guns blazing and no room for compromise, he'll get one or two things done off the bat, but then he'll find himself cock-blocked and vilified until the end of his term, or terms, if he even gets another one. He's got to draw the other side toward the middle, and to do that he must step toward the middle himself, or he's got no chance to stay relevant. Is it what I would do? No. But then, I'm not president. I'm an asshole who presumes to tell people that god does not exist. I do not have my finger on the pulse of America.

And it's not like Obama didn't tell us that he was going to do this. I think he mentioned more than once that he was pretty interested in bringing the divergent sides of this country together. No red states or blue states but United States, remember? And what we're working toward is something better than what we have now, okay? Can we all just agree that to make things better must sometimes be enough?

And if you think back to when Bush first ran, what was one of the reasons why so many centrists felt comfortable voting for him? Because he promised to govern from the center, and to draw both sides toward that point. Did he do that? No. Did he ever have any intention of doing that, 9/11 or no? No. You don't pick Dick Cheney as your veep if you have any intention of doing that, obviously. So he lied to us. Deliberately. And it's one of the things I hate most about him. Do you want people on the right to feel about Obama the way we all feel about Bush? Do you want Obama's climate change initiative to stall in Congress? Do you want his health care plan to die in committee? Do you want him be blamed for this economic mess the way Carter was blamed for Nixon's?

Or do you want to get shit done?

I'll admit that I've been feeling pretty hopeless recently. My own economic troubles have seemed to mirror the nation's, and I feel like the time I have left on this earth to do what needs to be done is slipping away, fast. Even the thought of an Obama presidency hasn't buoyed my spirits much.

But then, I was watching the concert on the mall in D.C. yesterday, and you know that I am a stone cold sucker for elevated rhetoric. And when Bruce Springsteen sang "The Rising," and the choir behind him was singing the words "a dream of life," and the camera zoomed in over their heads to the stone visage of my beloved martyr Lincoln, who believed more than anyone ever has, or could ever hope to, that our dreams for this nation shall not perish from the earth...well dear readers, I am only slightly ashamed to admit that tears streamed down my face and that everything changed in an instant.

I've still lost much, I've still been betrayed and disrespected and made to feel as if I were the one in the wrong. But maybe I'm starting now to get the hope thing. Just a little bit.

Think good art global, act good art local

A while ago, I vowed to get rid of all my pre-fab art and hang only original stuff. I'm not there yet, but here's some cool stuff I have acquired, some of it from people you might know.

Too long ago for me to only be acknowledging it just now, my blogger friend Dave from Bad Art Global sent me two paintings from his yellow tulip series. The one on the right also features a robot, which is a common theme of Dave's. I believe they are watercolor on heavy paper. I love these pieces and so I used them to frame two pieces I acquired on the Venice boardwalk. "Karoake Brian" is pastel crayon on cardboard, and "Todd Fish" is acrylic on 2x4. Don't they make a great grouping? And I think I paid twenty dollars total.

This is a print from Mary Catherine over at little red fox. It's called "Little Ghost Girl," and you can buy one in her Etsy shop for only $18! I love her stuff.

I bought two paintings of cows at a yard sale for about ten bucks, and my ex made frames for them out of scrap wood.

This one is supposed to look like you're looking through a fence. Cool, huh?


This is a photo I bought from a photographer at the NoHo Arts Festival. At $35 it's one of my more expensive pieces, but I really like it.


I also got this at the (sadly, now defunct) NoHo Arts Festival. It's part collage and part original painting, on cardboard. I paid $25, I think. It's interesting, isn't it?


This one I also bought on the Venice Boardwalk and I paid 100 clams for it. Pricey, I know, but it is an original acrylic on canvas, and it's over two feet wide. The bridge pictured, called the Hyperion Aqueduct, runs over the LA River between Silver Lake and Atwater Village. One of the tags the painter included on the underside of the bridge is a from a tagger who works in my neighborhood as well. Small world.

Spooney painted this one. The photo doesn't do it justice; the brush strokes are nice and the colors are sort of softly unique. As far as I know it was free, but Spooney will probably reposess it if we ever break up.


My sister painted this for my Grandmother, and she was gracious enough to let me have it when Gran died because she thinks its corny, and I love it. My sister has such a talent for watercolors, which I could never do at all because watercolors are HARD.

And this thing I did. I drew it for Gran about 15 years ago, and I ended up with it again after she died. It's from a photograph of her holding my sister as a baby. The mat and frame are hideous, I know, but I think I was trying to match Gran's sofa, or something. Anyway, it's ebony pencil on paper, and the cost was only a tiny bit of heartbreak.

Jai ho! Golden Globes!

The Golden Globes are too business-like and efficient to truly ridicule; y'all will have to wait for the deliciousness of the Oscars® for the full-on snark.

HOWEVER, a few thoughts:

1. Slumdog Millionaire is the best movie I have seen in a long time, and any award that the foreign press and/or the toadies at the Academy seek to bestow upon it is well-deserved. What I'm wondering is, will the Academy of MPA&S throw it into the "foreign film" category just because there is some subtitle-age, thereby leaving the best picture category open for more conventional Hollywood tripe like "Benjamin Button" aka "Brad Pitt Really Wants That Oscar It Has Been a Long Time Since Twelve Monkeys, Yo." So if you haven't seen Slumdog - go. The premise/framing device is really great, and just about the time you're getting kinda tired of the device, they drop it and just set the story loose. And I love how they heightened the realism without turning the movie into an exercise in magical brown people. Plus, the acting is great, and geez, I even like the soundtrack, and I normally HATE Indian music (and world music in general) with the burning heat of thousand white-hot suns. So, all that, plus the Indian Regis Philbin. Awesome.

2. 30 Rock brings teh funny, but the ratings are not so good. And I have noticed that every smart friend of mine who "meh"s the show is a dude. What's up wit that? Are they not down with the non-glam female lead, or are they perhaps just disciples of The Hitch and his theory that possession of ovaries = not funny? Whatever. Big ups to the show for all the wins and to my friend Jack McBrayer who should be nominated next time, huh?

3. Ricky Gervais is the new Sasha Baron Cohen. Unfortunately, Sasha demonstrated last night that we have no need for the old one. All I got to say is, Bruno better be funny.

4. In the categories where actors who play real people were nominated for Golden Globes, they won 5-2. Well, actually, 5-1, because I don't think you can really count Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII.

Here's Meyers as Henry VII:


Hey, Jonathan, a dancer on a float in the 1998 West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade called. He wants his pants back.

And here's King Henry VIII


Yeah, I think Meyers might have gone a little overboard with the ab definition. Also, his sword is bigger.

Yeah, that's what she said. And by "she," I mean his fourth wife, the German-born Anne of Cleves, whose strategic marriage to Henry secured an alliance against Charles V.

Anyway...I seem to have strayed a bit from my original point, which is, that outside of a Holocaust movie, playing a real person, especially if that person is mentally retarded, physically disabled, or just not feeling very well, is really the best way to win an award. And if you play a real person in the Holocaust, then you can only be beat by someone who...well... died tragically just before the voting began, I guess.

5. Mickey Rourke. Do not care. Didn't care about his first train wreck, and do not care about the second one that's clearly headed his way. The guy's a drug-addled peacock with SAG card, and his skillz are not all that. Seriously, name me one movie since "Pope of Greenwich Village" in which Rourke was impressive. And if Eric Roberts doesn't get to skate for a quarter of a century on an Eric Roberts vehicle, then neither does he.

And don't say "Barfly," either, because first of all, anyone looks cool portraying Bukowski, and secondly, see that actress over in the corner there, the one who can play something besides drunken bemusement? That's Faye Dunaway, and she just stole the movie from him.

And also, Mickey, I don't care if you are buddies with Bruce Springsteen and you love your dogs, man, don't trash talk your competition. Sean Penn doesn't hate homos, okay? Shut up and keep your head down and you may get another chance to have a career in film. Lord knows there are tons of mediocre actors with bad face lifts who are pretty sure they can stay off the stuff who are dying to take your place.

6. Colin Farrell won best actor in a film musical or comedy for In Bruges?? Really?? Colin, see my comments for Mickey Rourke above, and for chrissake, stay away from the collagen.

USA to Illinois: No. --UPDATED

Here in California, our senators have been pretty much set in stone since Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein were both elected in 1992. Since they’re both older Jewish Democrat gals with a penchant for power suits, how do we tell them apart? Simple. Boxer is the smart liberal whom we’re pretty much always proud of. Feinstein is the one with the naked ambition and the “centrist” (read Republican) tendencies. My theory is that she wants to be The Next Hillary, and she’s kicking up a fuss over Obama’s nominee to head the CIA to prove that she’s got mad spook cred. She thinks that Obama’s guy doesn’t have enough intelligence experience. Hey, YOU try finding someone with CIA on his resume who isn’t painted with the Gitmo taint.

The Gitmo taint is some powerful stanky taint, readers, more powerful even than the Blagojevich taint, from what I hear.

And speaking of the Blagojevich taint...

Boo. Bad. Very very very very bad for Illinois. And no, I don’t care that Obama got Reid to agree to seat Roland Burris. Neither do I care that our own Feinstein inexplicably stepped up to caution against turning Burris away from the Senate door. Perhaps it was payback for Obama's apology to her for not consulting her on the spy guy.

And no, I also don’t care that the formerly cool formerly Black Panther Congressman Bobby Rush likened the Senate to a “plantation,” and Burris to some kind of latter-day Mandingo. Um, just kidding about the Mandingo part.

But only just.

So, in case the press hasn't made it clear yet, Roland Burris is a joke, and I’ll give you 3 reasons why:

1. His 2 kids are named Roland Burris and Rolanda Burris. Rolanda. C'mon, even George Foreman would blush at Rolanda.

2. He seems to have trouble distinguishing tombstones from resumes.

Wait, I just remembered another one. Make that 4 reasons:

3. He thinks that his appointment was ordained by God. Haven’t we learned by now that remarks like that are never a good sign?

Sorry, 5. I got 5. Wait, 6.

4. He believes that Illinois deity Abraham Lincoln is not only aware of the job he’s doing, but gave him an excellent performance review.

5. He cried racism where none existed, and by doing so has cheapened a claim that should never, ever, be invoked in bad faith.

Okay, 7. But that’s it.

6. When asked whether he would run for re-election when his appointee term was up, he said “Let me get my Senate legs under me and get in and raise some money to pay for all this stuff.” Ladies and gentlemen, you have just witnessed a preview of the Roland Burris legislative agenda.

7. He weighed another man’s life against a negligible risk to his political ambitions and chose…his political ambitions.

Are we seeing the common thread yet?

You know, the late, great Mayor Harold Washington once famously explained to the city of Chicago what “hubris” was. I can see now that there are at least two Illinois politicians who clearly were not paying attention.

----------------

UPDATE 1/8/09:

Well, that didn't take long. Burris, who was called in today to testify in front of the Illinois House impeachment committee, has admitted that he spoke to a representative of Blago's regarding the empty Senate seat.

What so bad about that? Only that he swore an affidavit stating that he had no such contact.

The Best Part: Burris defended himself by saying that he had originally contacted Blago's rep (actually a former chief of staff and close friend of the governor) not to lobby for the Senate seat, but to try to drum up state business for his consulting firm.

Because that's so much better.

Jingle Bells On

Burbank, California is a bit of a redneck town. People tend to think of California as entirely peopled by liberals, be it of the tie-dyed, or the latte-swilling, variety. But look, it’s a big state. We can’t all be organic hemp entrepreneurs. Somebody’s got to work at the hardware store.

My hardware store is in Burbank, which is a town adjacent to, but separate from, Los Angeles. I tend to shop in Burbank even though I live in the NoHo neighborhood of LA, because the stores are nicer. Unlike at the North Hollywood Ralph’s, homeless dudes don’t rifle through the bagel bins of my Burbank grocery store. Vacant lots are kept clean of garbage. Police officers pull you over to issue you a warning that one of your brake lights looks a little dim.

And for that reason, Burbank tends to be a magnet for those drawn to the advantages of living in a large metro area, but who don’t necessarily want to share in the whole cultural melting pot thing. In other words, if you want good Mexican, don’t go to Burbank.

The employees of my Burbank hardware store are not the same as those you see working for the larger chains. They’re older. Quite a bit older, in fact. And they’ve been there forever. And I am not necessarily above the impulse to unconsciously judge employers by their ability to retain white employees – who, unlike their Latino counterparts, and in spite of what Fox News might tell you, can pretty much work wherever they want in Los Angeles.

In my store, mostly the men work the floor, and mostly the women work the registers. That’s no surprise. You’ll find that anywhere. In fact, I once had a friend who was a DIY goddess. Not having a garage, she converted a large closet in her condo into a workshop complete with a full-size table saw. She had every power tool known to man. She routed her own moulding. She could install ceramic tile in her sleep. And when she applied for a job at Home Depot, where did they put her? That’s right, behind a cash register. Meanwhile, the teenage boy working in the tool corral couldn’t identify a drill press in a lineup with a circular saw and a palm sander.

Unlike my friend, the register ladies at my hardware store seem content with their lot. And when they’re not busy, they keep up a steady stream of gossip about who always takes two extra minutes on their cigarette break, who didn’t finish stocking the items from Tuesday’s delivery, and who always pretends to be helping customers in order to avoid breaking down the pallets.

Which reminds me of another friend of mine, who worked one summer for a large Midwestern chain of hardware stores. Toward the end of the summer, he received his acceptance into Harvard Law School. When he gave notice, he asked the manager not to mention it to any of the other employees, who had given him no end of shit over the past couple of months because he was, ah, well, maybe not quite as committed to, and respectful of, a life devoted to retail as they thought he should have been. As luck would have it, the manager scheduled an all-staff meeting on my friend’s last day, and he could not resist announcing, proudly, my friend’s latest achievement, as if, without the manager’s expert bagging and stocking guidance, my friend would never have been accepted at such a prestigious institution.

As my friend expected, the announcement was met with much eye-rolling and groaning from his coworkers. One of them protested loudly “He’s going to Harvard? He don’t even know how to work the box baler!”

Indeed.

As I look around my own hardware store, especially at those denizens who count “toothpick” as an acceptable uniform accessory, I can well imagine that a similar scene might take place there. About a week ago, I was in the store picking up some drawer organizers, because that’s what I do when I get a couple of days off, and as I finished paying and had turned away from the cashier, she assaulted me with a fairly aggressive “Merry Christmas!” It was so insistently intoned that it made me stop in my tracks and look back at her.

She was one of those older ladies who dyes her hair that color that kind of splits the difference between grey and blonde, know what I mean? She wore a Santa pin on her uniform vest, and glasses on a chain around her neck. Her name tag placed her squarely in that set of women whose names are no longer in favor in this country: like Bertha, and Marjorie, and Eunice. Her jaw was set at a defiant angle, and her eyes narrowed their gaze at me. In the instant while I considered my reply, I imagined a meeting between workers and management wherein the employees were ordered to end each transaction during the month of December with a generic and inclusive “Happy Holidays.” I also imagined conversations among those who expressed, in between puffs on Pall Malls out on the loading dock, their determination to defy the directive, and their conviction that Christians, especially the English-speaking ones, you know, are the beleaguered martyrs of this country who love the USA while asking for not one thing in return.

And I wondered why she had picked me. As a middle-aged white woman, did she figure me for a friendly? Was her salutation an invitation to respond in kind, a sort of Burbank hardware store version of “geese fly south at midnight”? Or did she take in my ironic mirrored aviators and my Loteria jewelry and decide that I was part of the problem, and thus deserving of her loaded xmas greeting bomb?

I considered a variety of replies, from “Fuck you!” to “Happy Hanukkah!” and I suppose several in between. But at that moment, what struck me as sad, and sort of regrettable about the whole situation was that she was not only kind of missing the point of Christmas, but in fact even missing the point of wishing anybody a merry anything.

I squelched a sincere desire to retort “Christmas is not a weapon, bitch.” And then instead I smiled at her and said “Merry Christmas to you!”

And I meant it.

Because I may not be a Christian, but I believe in Christmas. Peace on earth, good will toward mankind, and all that. It’s a good idea, Christmas, and we’re living in a world sorely in need of some good ideas. So let’s all keep Christmas, all of us, and when we choose to defy the bone-headed so-called “politically correct” middle managers of the world, let’s defy them with love in our hearts and in our voices, not vindictiveness.

And merry Christmas, hardware store lady. For Christ’s sake, merry Christmas to you. Always. Always.

Blue Christmas!

Happy Holidays to everyone. Peace on earth and all that jazz.

I'll be out for the next week or so. Until then, here are some subjects you can stew over in my absence:

- Rick Warren
- Is the South out to destroy the UAW and steal the American auto industry just like they destroyed the garment workers unions and stole the Northern textile industry?
- BushCo's pardon list. Extra credit: Will Cheney be pardoned preemptively?

Fuck Wall Street

One part of my job requires that I keep abreast of financial stories, mostly so that I can make an informed comment or two when the guys at work start in with the “market” talk. To that end, I dutifully listen to Marketplace every morning and every evening on the drive to and from the office. Well, almost every evening. Some evenings, I am so stressed out from the rodent race that I have to turn off the program and crank up Kanye West’s Stronger and break that shit down as I inch along on the 134W. Yeah, screw NPR and informed citizenry! When do I get to be the Louis Vuitton Don???

Believe it or not, middle-aged white women blasting KW out the sunroofs of their sensible Volvo wagons is not as uncommon a sight in LA as one might think.

But back to the financial news, which is never good anymore. Even if there is some kind of moderate gain in the Dow, it’s offset with word that foreclosures are up, or that job numbers are down. And speaking of foreclosures, it’s now known that that piece of shit bankruptcy bill passed by our genius Republican congress in 2005 is responsible for about 32,000 foreclosures each quarter. How so? Well, under previous rules, individuals in bankruptcy were allowed to take money out for their mortgage first, and pay credit card debt second. The bill reversed the order of priority. And that 32k figure is only reflecting people who actually file for bankruptcy. Probably many more don’t bother to file, knowing that it cannot erase their credit card debt, or enable them to stay in their homes anymore.

I know, it’s hard to believe that a Republican congress would pass a bill that was essentially a big sloppy valentine to MBNA and the other credit card companies, but guess who predicted that it would have exactly that consequence? Me! Okay, it was on an older, now-deleted blog and I can’t prove it, but I did predict it. And guess what? I WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE.*

Because when you take downward economy, + rising insurance and healthcare costs + decreases in insurance coverage, what does that equal? It equals fully ½ of the people that are going bankrupt, doing so because of medical bills. Medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy, people. And that fucking bill did our fucking joke healthcare industry one better and not only ruined their finances, but kicked them out of their homes, too. Because I guess we don’t need a lot of weak invalid pansies trying to live our American dream of home ownership. If only they’d pulled themselves up by their bootstraps instead of getting surgeries and chemotherapy and things, this wouldn’t have happened. Perhaps they should think about getting their weak-ass selves and families into some government housing next time. Or better yet, perhaps they should all just die, and decrease the surplus population.

You know what that fucking Orwellian-named Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 did not “reform”? Chapter 11 bankruptcy. You know who files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy? Businesses. Apparently businesses are not abusing anything, and so do not require the altruistic reforming efforts of the 2005 heart-full-of-unwashed-socks 2005 Republican Congress.

And apparently, businesses also do not require regulation when they play with credit default swaps, and hedge their bets that other businesses unrelated to their business will fail. For those not familiar with the practice, those bets that companies make against the success of other companies are so huge, that when the bet-upon company does fail, all the companies that placed bets upon that company can fail too, because they are now required to pay out billions of dollars for their bad bets that they will not be able to pay if only one other company fails to pay them.

Sound ill-advised? It is. And the effect is what we have just seen and will no doubt continue to see: one company fails and brings down another, and then that one brings down four more, and so on. It’s basically entirely unregulated gambling, and it’s enormously lucrative when it works, and completely fucking devastating when it fails.

To say nothing of that motherfucker Madoff’s hedge fund antics and the fact that although numerous complaints have been lodged against him over the last nine years, the SEC never investigated him once. Martha Stewart, they got. Madoff, on the other hand, ran completely amok, and may have done more than 50 BILLION dollars of damage, and, well, hell, you know it’s bad when they’re thinking of renaming the Ponzi scheme after this dude instead.

Look, readers, I go back and forth on the whole bailout thing. I do. I weigh the price against the good. Somedays I’m all “Let them dangle.” And somedays I think the cost in human lives of seeing these guys go under is too high.

One thing I do know is that I am sick to death of those fucking pansy-ass motherfuckers on Wall Street, and their fucking arbitrary speculating, and their fucking squirrely dumping of stocks. I am sick of hearing about how buyers are “spooked,” and about how they can be swayed to buy or sell by a single word from some scared shitless government dude who’s probably flipping a coin over what he’s going to say anyway. I am sick of this guy, who no longer even has a straight face to attempt to say things with, claiming that his love of Wall Street is based upon “principle.” I am sick of all those guys and I am sick of the hand-wringing that goes on about what they do, and I am sick of seeing my 401k go down because of them, and I am sick of 401ks and the bullshit choices for investment that they offer, and I am really, really sick of hearing Marketplace playing “Stormy Weather” when they talk about the Dow every morning.

Those assholes should all go fuck themselves. And then when they're finished, they should go out and get a real fucking job, for fuck’s sake. Try making something for a living, or help someone besides another rich asshole get richer. Yeah, instead of speculating on the price of wheat, why don’t you try going out and fucking growing some?

Or at the very least, try this on for size: Country First. Yeah, you guys were all McCain supporters, weren’t you? All hopped up that patriotic claptrap, right? Well, why don’t you try walking the fucking walk just a tiny little bit? Huh? Heaven help this country when I become an example, but I’m not dumping my pitifully small amount of stock, and you know why? Because then I would be part of the problem.

Did that ever occur to you? Could it? Or is the part of your wiring that considers the collective good completely bypassed by now?

C’mon, write me and tell me I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, and that my grasp of economic issues is weak, and that I don’t understand the potential of market forces blah blah blah. Do it. I want you to. Defend it. Please. I’ve got my response all ready for you, and it’s very economical.

It’s only two words. Care to speculate what they might be?

*Barack Obama voted against the bill, as did both CA senators, Kennedy, Kerry, Dodd, and holy shit…Lieberman! Senator Clinton…was the only senator who did not vote. See? This is why I always had a problem with her. Joe Biden voted for the bill, which pretty much sums up my problems with Joe Biden as well.

**Thanks to Josh P for the tip.

Hannity needs to look into both the taking and the making of jokes

So on the Daily Show last night, tribute was paid to departing Fox News doormat Alan Colmes, so-called "co-host" of Hannity and Colmes.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Hall & Oates Pay Tribute to Alan Colmes

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Yes, it's a semi-amusing re-make of the very smooth Hall & Oates hit "She's Gone."

One might have wished that they had rehearsed it a little more. Or once, even.

In any event, today, Hannity had a response. Now, I don't usually post about the Hannitys and Coulters of this world, because, well, it's what they want. You know, the ole' "never wrestle a pig" rule. But I absolutely LOVE this response:

"I was actually thinking of Jon [Stewart] as a co-host but I needed someone who could be smart and funny without 50 writers and two has-been rockers who are badly in need of Botox."

Oh, sn-- wait a minute. Huh?

Dude, that's your put down? Seriously?

Because, okay, well, shit. There's so much.

First of all, you're making fun of Hall and Oates for NOT having their faces injected with vanity-fueled neurotoxin? I mean, they actually look pretty good for their ages. They're not bloated, their skin isn't stretched tighter than their underwear, and aside from Oates being in full black shoe polish mode, they have full heads of what appears to be their own hair. There's suprisingly little fuel for ridicule. Kudos to the H&O.

And secondly, the thesis of your Jon Stewart joke is that he's not FUNNY?

Sean, baby, let me explain how jokes work. See, what you do is, when you want to put someone down, is you pinpoint a weakness of theirs, and you make fun of it in some way. Like, if I were to make fun of you, I might say something about how your hairline appears to be advancing down your forehead in a suspiciously Shatnerian manner. See? Like that. Or that your full, rounded neck and jowls suggest that you might be storing nuts there until the next Republican administration. Or, hell, that you don't seem capable of grasping the idea that when you say something on a news program, it's better if it's true.

How you don't make a joke, see, is by taking an attribute that someone clearly has, and just say that they don't have it. I mean, what are you, in the 3rd grade? You're going to go at one of the most popular and topical and intelligent and finger-on-the-pulsey comedians of this or any generation with the comedic equivalent of "I know you are but what am I?"

Well, okay. But guess what? Stewart's going to come back at you, and when he does, it's going to be funny.

Once I ran to you, now I'll run from you

Obama: Dude, you did not!
Daley: I did!
Obama: You taped an "impeach me" sign on his back?
Daley: Hee hee hee.
Obama: Dude, that is some funny shit.
Daley: Right?
Blagojevich: Hey guys, what's so funny?
Obama: Oh, nothing.
Daley: Yeah, you'll find out soon enough.

If you’re not still hibernating following the election, you’ve no doubt noticed that the media is speculating on whether the Blagojevich scandal will taint Obama. Everywhere you look, it’s “Can Obama Escape the Taint of Blagojevich?” and “Will Blagojevich Taint Obama?” and even, dear god, “The Tainting of the President Elect.”

I haven’t heard this much talk about taint since Britney forgot what underwear was.

Having been a close observer of Chicago politics for many years before moving to LA, it’s amusing to me to see the talking heads from out of town try to speculate on the relationship between Obama and Blago. For one thing, the same people who, before the election, went apoplectic at the suggestion that Senator Ted Stevens’s corruption might somehow be a reflection on Governor Palin’s ethics, are now very willing to suggest that the mere fact that Senator Obama worked in the same state as Governor Blagojevich is proof of an impending criminal indictment.

For another thing, Blago is on tape calling Obama a motherfucker. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in Chicagoese, that’s what you call people who aren’t playing fucking ball. For further proof, let’s take a look at Blago’s reaction when a consultant suggested that he should man up and appoint the person (Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett) that Obama was pushing for: “Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him.”

Obviously the governor…wait a minute, he’s not done: “They're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.”

Okay. I don’t know about you, but that response kinda suggests to me that Obama definitely was not smelling what the Blago was cooking.

But I don’t expect the speculation to end anytime soon, even though dreamy US Attorney Patrick “Untouchable” Fitzgerald suggested it should not even begin when he said “there's no reference in the complaint to any conversation involving the president-elect or indicating that the president-elect was aware of it,” and that the complaint “makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever,” and that the press shouldn’t “cast aspersions on people for being named or being discussed.”

But hey, let’s not listen to Fitzgerald. He’s only the guy who brought down Scooter Libby. Okay, W brought him back up again, but still. Fitzgerald also had a hand in bringing down Illinois’ previous governor, Republican George Ryan, who is still in jail for several pay-to-play schemes, including one in which companies bribed officials to give commercial truck driving licenses to dangerously unqualified individuals and/or illegal immigrants, including one who directly caused the death of six children in a highway accident. Don’t worry about Ryan, though, because he’s also in line for a pardon from W.

Ryan chose the non-Ted-Stevens route and decided to leave office before he was brought down. Before he left, he declared a much-needed moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois after it was discovered that there might be more innocent men on death row than guilty ones. It was likely a desperate career move to resuscitate his image and to NOT be remembered as the worst governor in the history of Illinois.

Seeing as how Blagojevich not only tried to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder, but also to strong-arm the Chicago Trib into firing editorial page critics (did he not think the newspaper might, um, take the story to the press?), and shakedown an organization advocating health care for poor children, I don’t think Ryan has anything to worry about.

The Drysies©

Grant Miller was one of the first people from teh internets to find my blog and read it, and as such, he will always be okay in my book, even though when I met him in person he was kind of a dick and didn't even say hi to me - although later he did buy me a drink and so then he was okay again in my book. Although...did you guys know that Grant is only about three feet tall? He's really tiny, like a small kitten, or one of those statues of the Virgin Mary that you put on your lawn in a bathtub planted with petunias. But still, still okay in my book.

But then, I have a really crappy book.

I'm serious. My book sucks. It's really long, and kinda boring, except for the last couple of chapters when I start to overshare in a semi-public forum and spew bilious clouds of political fluff. Several really cool people picked up my book and started reading near the end and actually think it's a good book, and I've decided not to disposess them of that notion.

To that end, please go to Grant Miller Media and vote for me for this year's Drysdale Awards. I am self-nominated in 2 categories:

Least Influential Political Blogger - I have won this award every year since the beginning of the Drysies© in 2006. Please do not let this hallowed tradition end.

Least Logical Political Argument in a Single Post - In my recent post "Nacho Marriage," I argue that the Mormon male experience is so homoerotic that the LDS opposition and support of Prop 8 was motivated by - get this - self-loathing! Seriously! That was the thesis of my post! So vote for me in this category too, because my weak-ass shit deserves it.


"Drysies" is a copyrighted term and may not be used without the express written permission of Bells On© Media.

Total Recall

People of Illinois, you have my sympathies.

Sort of. I mean, you had a chance to dump Blagojevich in 2006, when a great candidate, former regional administrator of HUD and reformer of the Chicago Housing Authority Edwin Eisendrath ran against Blago in the Democratic primary.

Blago won, even though he was already embroiled in numerous scandals.

Why, for chrissakes?

I used to live in Chicago, and let me tell you that although many people are tired of the pervasive corruption of city and state government, many more would just as soon take advantage of it.

To put it another way, the half of Illinois residents who voted to re-elect Blago are the same people whose cousin's brother-in-law has a business partner married to a friend of Blagovich's father-in-law. And someday, by god, that connection is going to put them in the fabled cat bird seat, and award them that plum concession, or that overpriced contract, or that cushy no-show job.

Meanwhile, the scandals, and the investigation of the governor by Plame prosecutor Patrick "untouchable" Fitzgerald seemed to go on and on.

Until today, when the governor of Illinois was arrested by Fitzgerald for attempting to sell Obama's empty US Senate seat to the highest bidder. The hot rumor is that Obama's bulldog Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel is the one who blew the whistle.

Yes, it's hard to believe that a man whose every move was being watched, and possibly electronically monitored, by the most feared US Attorney in modern history, would attempt something so audacious and so transparent. But that's Blagojevich for you. The list of possible appointees for the seat that he attempted to shake down is already mostly publicly known, and the best part is that he INCLUDED HIMSELF on the list, because he apparently felt "stuck" in the governor's office, and wanted to move to post where he could position himself as a presidential candidate in 2016.

I know, it's fucking gloriously unhinged, isnt' it?

If Blagojevich could just acquire a goofier accent, and a get a few bad action movies under his belt, he might be able stand toe-to-toe in self-delusion with our own dear governator:

How you like me now?

Ha ha, bang, bitches!

Rumsfeld's old nemesis, General Eric "we'll be needing more troops in Iraq" Shinseki, has been named to Obama's cabinet as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Shinseki was one of the numerous tragedies of the BushCo years: a intelligent military commander who was not afraid to speak truth to power, and who was forced into early retirement when he didn't toe the Rumsfeld line. I remember thinking at the time, "so much for letting 'commanders on the ground' guide our strategy."

Look at him. He's loving the smell of vindication in the morning.

Maybe he should call Colin Powell and describe to him how sweet it smells.

Secundus , ignarus primum ut is est incommodus

Just when my hatred of the reign of King George II has begun to mellow in anticipation of its end, W is proceeding with one of his most heinous moves ever.

BushCo plans on implementing a rule prior to its departure, and it comes to us courtesy of the Health and Human Services Department and the Secretary of HHS, Mike Leavitt.

Who is a Mormon.

I’m telling you just in case that knowledge should fill you with a not insignificant sense of foreboding, which it certainly does me. Really, hearing that some highly-placed government official is a Mormon is kinda like hearing da-dum…da-dum… when you’re watching Jaws. You know nothing good is going to follow.

Likewise, the rule is being championed by the Christian Medical Association, and the League of Catholic Bishops, two groups whom I’m sure have your personal freedom, and the best interests of women, very close to their hearts.

So, the rule would forbid any entity that receives federal funds from taking action against an employee who refuses to perform, or even take part in, any medical service that they morally object to.

So first of all, try to think of a hospital, or pharmacy, or doctor’s office that doesn’t receive federal funds. To be clear, it doesn’t have to be entirely, or even significantly, federally funded, it just has to receive federal funds. The LA Times estimates that nearly 600,000 entities would be affected, nation-wide.

Secondly, you might think that this rule is designed to protect doctors who don’t want to perform abortions, and you might think “Hey, I can live with that. Doctors shouldn’t be forced to perform abortions.”

You’d be wrong. Doctors are already protected from performing abortions.

This rule, while being written broadly enough to have many fucked-up consequences that we’ll explore in a sec, is aimed specifically at one event, and that event is the availability to women of the so-called “morning after pill,” one of a class of drugs known as Emergency Contraceptive Pills, which is what women take, for instance, after a sexual assault, in order to prevent pregnancy. Please bear in mind as we proceed that the pill also, by preventing pregnancy, prevents abortions.

Wait, how do I know that that’s why this rule is being forced down our throats at 5 minutes until midnight on the last day in the life of this farkakteh administration? Because they admit it freely. Yes, they have absolutely no problem in the least admitting that they are just fine with keeping women from preventing unwanted pregnancies, even when those pregnancies are the result of rape.

And people wonder why I am not a big fan of Christianity. Look, Christianity may be fine in theory, but in practice…not so much.

So, who’s against the new rule? Oh, only the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association, and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Yeah, those stuck-up old fuddy duddies at the AMA, AHA, and ACOG, with their concern for the patient, and the health of the patient, and that whole crackpot patient-centered approach to medicine. When are those cranks going to get with it, and realize that medicine is really all about doctors and their feelings about things?

And not just how doctors feel about things. Because even if you do get a doctor’s prescription for ECP, the pharmacist could feel like he doesn’t want to fill it. The clerk could feel like he doesn’t want to stock it on the shelves. And under the broad language of the rule, physicians would be protected from, for example, assisting gay people with artificial insemination, or in-vitro fertilization, and the only reason they need to give is that they feel, um, conflicted about gay people. The lab tech at a fertility clinic could refuse to perform any part of the process as well. Not only that, but if you were dying, and the medicine they were going to give you for the pain might also suppress your ability to breathe, no matter how okay you and your doctor were with that, the nurse could refuse to give it to you. Just refuse. Because he has issues.

And under this proposed rule, the government would protect those people.

Okay, I know I took a cheap shot earlier when I said that Christianity sucks in practice. I should apologize. I should, although I don’t feel like apologizing. I feel like saying that "sucks" is a nice word for what Christianity does. I also feel like saying that although I don’t believe that Jesus ever existed, I am willing to concede that, not unlike Yoda or Frasier Crane, Jesus gave some good advice from time to time, although of course I must also point out that the words of Jesus are pretty much summarily ignored by the church organizations and by most Christians as well.

If you read what Jesus said, he’s mostly interested in people treating each other better than they were. More compassionately. He wanted to make life more kind, and for rich and poor to be treated more equally, and he pretty much said that’s what God is interested in, too.

So if there is a Heaven, it’s clear that what’s going to get your ticket punched is helping those in need, not refusing to give aid to a woman who’s been raped, or to a couple who desperately want children, or to a 19-year-old woman with a life-threatening pulmonary embolism who requires an emergency abortion.

Remember when white hospitals refused even emergency treatment to black people? I think that if you look back, you find out that when they did that, it wasn’t a copy of the Constitution they were waving in everyone’s faces. It was the Bible. The Bible has been used to justify more mean and evil deeds than the whole of do-gooding Christianity has ever been able to prevent or mitigate. That’s a net loss, Christians. You might want to think about declaring bankruptcy. Or on second thought, just apply to the U.S. Government for a bailout. I’m pretty sure W could hook you up.

Wild Turkey couldn't drag me away

I suspect that on this day, everyone’s writing posts about those things for which they are thankful. Being a frequently childish potty-mouthed contrarian, I have of course decided to tell you what I am NOT thankful for:

Idiots like Jonah Goldberg, who HAS HIS OWN SYNDICATED COLUMN in which he argues trivial nonsense such as: Obama is a hypocrite for sending his children to private school. Now, according to Goldberg, Republicans who send their children to private school are not hypocrites, because they support giving themselves a tax credit for doing so. Obama, on the other hand, is a hypocrite, because he does not support having the federal government subsidize what his family can well afford on their own.

The last time I heard logic that tortured, it was standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier with a big banner behind it that said “Mission Accomplished.”

More than the fact that I don’t see why I should subsidize private education when I already subsidize public education, there is a more important issue at stake here, and that is that many private schools are also religious schools.

So, by using government funds to support religious education, we would be violating that pesky separation of church and state bit of our constitution, yes, but we would also be funding the subjugation of women, gays, atheists, etc., much of which is preached, perpetuated & supported by organized religion.

And I’m against that. I have the temerity to believe it to be anti-American.

Funny, thing, though, about that whole church/state separation deal. We have largely evangelical Christians to thank for it.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, the US did not adopt the separation because Franklin was a randy old atheist with a beef against Puritans (he was not an atheist), or because Jefferson was a minor deity with a gift of foresight so powerful that he could predict the rise of secret Muslim presidential candidates. We adopted the separation because for over a hundred years, we’d tried our hand at official state religion, and had failed miserably at it.

As the colonies were established, official religions were established for that colony. Congregationalists flourished in the north (think Pilgrims), and the Anglican church in the southern colonies. Residents of those colonies who preached other than officially sanctioned religious beliefs were persecuted, banished, and even executed. Mary Dyer, one of many condemned for her religion, was put to death right on Boston Common for the crime of being a Quaker. A Quaker! What have Quakers ever done to anyone, ever, except shill for nutritious hot breakfast cereals, and found a state known chiefly for its fascistic approach to steak sandwiches? Quakers are the winners of the Miss Congeniality Award for Christian sects for, like, the last two hundred years straight.

Those colonial religious affiliations survived the transition to statehood, and became the bane of American upstart sects like the Baptists and Evangelicals. Those sects then backed political candidates like James Madison, who promised that they would support a Bill of Rights in our Constitution with a giant “no government support of religion” written in Founding Father Condensed Extra Bold right across the top.

But the best part was, it wasn’t merely self-preservation that motivated them. The Evangelicals also believed – get this! – that everyone has a personal relationship to the Almighty, and that God does not speak primarily through the clergy, but through everyone, and he most certainly did not require the support of a government to flourish; in fact, quite the opposite. The Evangelicals believed that the separation of church and state would, encourage, yes, I said encourage religion in the United States.

And apparently, they were correct. Because we are, collectively, one giant God-fearing mamajamma up in here. So, congratulations on your foresight, oh Jesus freaks, otherwise, without the separation, Kennedy would’ve had us all worshiping the guy in the beanie who thinks that pro-choice voters should be excommunicated, while child molesters get the get out of hell free card. Without your wisdom, President-elect Obama would right now no doubt be planning the massive conversion of public schools to madrasahs, churches to mosques, and the Washington Monument into the world’s most phallic minaret. And that’s saying something.

But I don’t understand why you have abandoned your past wise counsel, and now seek to establish yourselves as a state-sanctioned set of beliefs. Unless…could it be…that you forsee your own eventual demise, à la Old Europe, by forcing your dogma upon the populace by taking over government and passing legislation that curtails freedoms but conforms to church teachings? And that you predict that you will fade in power, and become governmentally irrelevant, like the Church of England, and that you wish to force your hand in order to hasten your own dwindling influence?

If that’s the case, man, bring it, as they say, on. If we’re going to pick an official religion for the United States, I want something hard core. No Lutherans or Presbyterians allowed; I demand a far-right inflexible hate-based exclusionary LDS or Evangelical Pentacostal religion, man, because I am SO down for the shitstorm of world rebuke and internal rebellion that would then be visited upon us. I am so ready to be a full-on William Ayersian soldier in that fight. I am so ready to have it out man, and let’s once and for all establish, without a doubt, what a bunch of fucking childish and pathetic idiots we all truly are.

Happy Thanksgiving!